Colonial Buganda and the End of Empire
Political Thought and Historical Imagination in Africa

This book offers an intellectual history of colonial Buganda, using previously unseen archives to recast the end of empire in East Africa.

Jonathon L. Earle (Author)

9781108404365, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 13 February 2020

299 pages, 25 b/w illus. 2 maps 1 table
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.45 kg

'Earle's work in elaborating the intellectual journeys of these individuals is vivid and methodologically innovative. It reclaims fragmentary sources and interprets intellectual leaps to emphasize a contingent and creative literary culture connecting diverse narratives of Uganda's history, religious ideas, and secular visions of progress, development, and (sometimes) democracy.' Carol Summers, African Studies Review

Colonial Buganda was one of the most important and richly documented kingdoms in East Africa. In this book, Jonathon L. Earle offers the first global intellectual history of the Kingdom, using a series of case studies, interviews and previously inaccessible private archives to offer new insights concerning the multiple narratives used by intellectuals. Where previous studies on literacy in Africa have presupposed 'sacred' or 'secular' categories, Earle argues that activists blurred European epistemologies as they reworked colonial knowledge into vernacular debates about kingship and empire. Furthermore, by presenting Catholic, Muslim and Protestant histories and political perspectives in conversation with one another, he offers a nuanced picture of the religious and social environment. Through the lives, politics, and historical contexts of these African intellectuals, Earle presents an important argument about the end of empire, making the reader rethink the dynamics of political imagination and historical pluralism in the colonial and postcolonial state.

Introduction: power and history writing in colonial Buganda
1. Ignatius K. Musazi: powerful kings and colonial economies, c.1905–c.1949
2. Eridadi M.K. Mulira: cosmopolitanism and citizenship, c.1909–c.1949
3. Eridadi M.K. Mulira: Buganda's status in Uganda, c.1953–c.1959
4. Abubakar K. Mayanja: pluralism and Islamic political thought, c.1844–c.1962
5. Benedicto K.M. Kiwanuka: justice and Catholic dissent, c.1879–c.1962
Conclusion: textual production and historical imagination in postcolonial Buganda.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], Colonialism & imperialism [HBTQ], Social & cultural history [HBTB], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], African history [HBJH]